Baseball coach Elliott Avent announced last week that Chris Hart, who has been a part of the team’s staff for three years, will now be a full-time assistant coach with the team. Hart was the director of baseball operations in 2005 and 2006 and a volunteer assistant coach during the 2007 campaign.

Hart has plenty of experience in the ACC, having played at Florida State from 1999-2003. After his graduation, he spent 2004 as an assistant coach at St. Petersburg College in Florida before coming to N.C. State for the 2005 season.

Associate head coach Tom Holliday praised Hart’s expertise and what he adds to the program.

“He brings youth and a strong passion for the game,” Holliday said. “He brings a sense of knowledge towards where we want to go.”

Holliday also talked about Hart’s ability to communicate the goals of N.C. State’s baseball program to the players — a huge part of the recruiting battle.

“A lot of people talk about where a program is going and where it wants to go,” Holliday said. “He came here from a Florida State program that settles for nothing less than the College World Series. He feels that urgency here, and he will help sell the players on where we plan on taking this program.”

Hart said his new responsibilities for the team will be to help get the players that the program needs to win.

“Over the last couple years, being in the volunteer position and the director of baseball operations position, I’ve shown that I can coach baseball,” Hart said. “This summer I had to show that I can recruit. That was a huge part of the promotion.”

Hart’s on-field coaching duties will be about the same as last year with only one real difference: After dealing primarily with hitters and infielders last year, he expects to put in a large part of his time with the catchers this season.

“My on-field role should probably stay the same,” Hart said. “The only thing I would say I’ll do differently is last year I worked just with infielders and hitters, and this year I’m also going to be heavily involved with the catchers.”

Hart said he is fully committed to State’s baseball program. As a young coach who played for a highly successful program at Florida State, he can relate to players, and he has no problem doing whatever it takes to help the team.

“I’m young. I’m single. I have a lot of energy,” Hart said. “In today’s recruiting, you have to be all over the place all the time. I’m young and it doesn’t bother me to go on the road every single day if that’s what it takes.”

Once again, Holliday strongly emphasized Hart’s importance to recruiting. Holliday touched on the new roles that have become necessary on a baseball coaching staff at the college level and pointed to how Hart fills some of those roles perfectly and will be instrumental to the team’s success.

“A lot of people don’t realize how much time goes into picking and choosing who you are going to recruit,” Holliday said.

“With all the new roles that have surfaced with baseball, just recruiting guys that can play is no longer the only criteria for recruiting. We have to do a lot of background checking, and someone with his enthusiasm and time and effort becomes very important.”